Monday, June 11, 2007

Collin Levy on Jon Kyl on S1348

With the repulsion, not once but twice, of S1348 last Thursday, I'll avoid being a one-trick pony again for a few days, until some limited number of amendments have been bantered about and the bill goes up for vote on the Senate floor.

After this, that is. Last week, the WSJ ran a hagiographic 'interview' (the "Weekend Interview" feature is more accurately described as a press release issued by the interviewee, with the WSJ's interviewer serving as the PR firm producing it) with President Bush. It is laced with condescension and blatant lies (I hate throwing that descriptor around, but in this case it's verifiably true--see my take here, or read the source material for yourself).

This weekend, Senator Jon Kyl is the man on the pedestal, with Collin Levy narrating. The first paragraph is the self-indulgent fluff of the sort you expect to hear on NPR, of no value whatsoever. In the second, Levy asserts without evidence that those on the restrictionist side are salivating gorillas, irrational and without factual arguments, while at the same time insinuating that the open borders crowd has a boatload of slamdunk polemics (as usual, those polemics are nowhere to be found):

This is the season when most of the political establishment would rather keep controversial topics for stump speeches or direct mail campaigns.

Oh, it's the Senate that is leading the charge against its own bill, to the chagrin of an American public that so desperately wants to see it passed! I had it all backwards.

In reality, by a 3-to-1 margin (69% to 23%), those who are the most up-to-speed on the immigration debate oppose the bill. Among the more oblivious, the legislation is only down about 2-to-1. And it is the pro-sovereignty Republican contigent (along with a minority of Democrats) in the Senate that wants to give the bill more time for floor discussion and amendment review, so the accusation that they don't want to spend time dealing with legislation on the immigration issue is ignorant.

Jon Kyl is insulated by the caprice of time, as he's not up for re-election again until 2012. Still, his support for the surprise bill was crucial, and the potential political damage is of consequence. In contrast to Arizona's senior Senator, Kyl generally comes down in opposition to the open borders crowd. Cognizant of this, Levy is sure to portray Kyl as a sensible immigration hardliner:

The intra-GOP fighting over immigration will only get more furious as we move toward the 2008 House and presidential races. And the administration, without a lot of political capital of its own, will need him more than ever. With 20 years in Congress, he's built a reputation as a go-to guy on border security--tough, but without the tinge of nativism that afflicts some hardliners.

In brushing aside the charge that granting legal status to those who've entered the country illegal is amnesty, Kyl asks what the alternative is. Because it's either this bill or a continuation of the Bush Administration non-enforcement!

There are a lot of things in the bill I'm still not happy with . . . It's impossible to make the existing system work so we have to change the law, and changing the law requires Democratic votes, so you have to make concessions to Democrats."

You can try to prevent people coming in, but there is a magnet of employment. Resourceful people can find ways to get here.

A wall obviously won't stop everyone. It's not a binary question, though. It will cut down the flow enormously. And the illegal immigrants who do evade the physical and virtual barriers are likely to be the most intelligent and industrious Latin America has to offer. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Continuing:

In Arizona, the economic realities are clear and immigrants are part of them.

Indeed, they are quite clear to Arizonans. Consequently, by a margin of more than 2-to-1 (50% to 24%), they oppose the legislation their two Senators were critical in putting together. They are slightly more opposed even than the rest of the country is.

I note that Democrats have played things closer to the vest so far, though they would seem to have as many problems with the current bill as Republicans.

No, they don't. A few special interests on the left are feigning opposition to make the amnesty bill look like a 'compromise'. Harry Reid knows that a repeat of the 1986 amnesty, albeit on a grander scale, is a long-term boon for the Democratic Party. Impoverished, welfare-using, urban-concentrated, affirmative-action eligible, ethnic minority--this is the stuff the Democratic pol dreams of. It also happens to be the profile of most illegal immigrants in the US right now.

But the Democratic leadership is rightly worried about an immediate political backlash due to the vast unpopularity of the Senate bill. Why not try and make Bush look like a dolt for not being able to do anything about immigration, let the lame duck continue to run his party into the ground, gain the Whitehouse in '08 while maintaining control of both Houses of Congress, and pass an amnesty then?

You'd think lining up with Ted Kennedy, La Raza, and the AFL-CIO against the Republican voting public would give the WSJ op/ed board pause enough to realize this bill isn't in the best interest of the party that is with them on the vast majority of the policies they favor.

"Everyone says enforcement first, and that's important, but in Yuma County, what that means is you are basically going to send that crop, the melons and the tomatoes and the lettuce . . . to Mexico. So when people complain about outsourcing..."

Uh, I don't think picking fruit and putting it into burlap sacks in the desert heat is the kind of work most Americans are concerned is being outsourced to tech hubs like Bangalore and Hong Kong.

I thought this immigration amnesty was necessary because without it we'd be stuck with lots of jobs Americans won't do. Again, I had it all backwards. If we don't pass S1348, a bunch of jobs Americans would otherwise do will disappear to Mexico!

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

You say Kyl wants amnesty, but he doesn't say that. He says that he doesn't like that part of the bill but it was the price to get the other stuff. YOu can say that it isn't enough, that he sold out too cheaply, but it's not like he wanted the amnesty provisions. He's been clear about this for weeks.

That's rather moderate of them compared to their editorial of 6-8-07, entitled: 'Immigration Heritage', subtitled 'The whole story on taxes and public benefits'.the subject is what they call 'the unfortunate myths', to the effect 'that immigrants are a net cost to U.S. taxpayers'. That no rational arguments are available for the thesis that net public subsidy of immigrants is a 'myth', is suggested already in their clearly dishonest claim of offering 'the whole story' on this sort of net public subsidy.It is further indicated when they try to rule out the cost of schooling for immigrants' minor children, saying that the more honest scholar 'counts the cost of educating these children of immigrants but he fails to count the taxes they pay as adults'.

How is that for honest accounting, as if the government borrowed money at zero cost, and there were no opportunity cost from throwing money at foreigners' children.Then they move on to a claim that immigrants subsidize social security, with a little bit more creative accounting, almost worthy of being called a Texas miracle, in which immigrants are simply defined as not getting social security disability, when actually millions of them do get it. More creative acocunting gets deceitfully thrown out to the gullible, payroll taxesare allowed to accumulate interest as if they would have been invested, while present costs are non-existent and of course, not interest-paying.

Then, after 'correcting' by means of counterfactual assumptions, we get told that ' about six of ten native-born American households also receive more in government services than they pay in taxes.'Everybody does it, why can't we do more of it, is not a rational argument.It shows disloyalty to those, especially the net taxpayers, to whom loyalty is owed.

Well, he was instrumental in creating what amounts to an amnesty bill, with the temporary Z Visas that legalize the illegal in a day. Perhaps he didn't want it--but had he so chosen, it would never have made it to the floor.

John,

I saw that one as well. In writing off the enormous expense of educating the low IQ children of underclass illegals, the board claims that such an argument assumes that zero children being birthed is optimal.

That's fallacious, of course--I have to spend money to buy stocks. I don't want to put $10,000 into something I'm only going to be able to sell for $5,000 the road. But I'm happy to spend $10,000 now for $20,000 down the road. Making bad investment decisions costs me. That doesn't mean I don't think I should invest at all.

Thanks! It is definitely an honor to be included alongside so many pro-sovereignty internet voices.

What we're losing to the Latinization and impoverishment of the US is becoming increasingly stark. I expect more up-and-comers like ourselves to break out of the electronic opiates that divert our collective attention from what is really important, and join the battle in some way to allow the US to retain its traditional strengths and continue to be the world leader in innovation, economic dynamism, functionality, and Occidentalism in general.